Asia Whale, Travels & Tours: Messages

Fan Forest Pinnacle is just a few miles north of Western Rocky. The pinnacle rises from a depth well beyond the limits of recreational divers, to about 5-meters below the surface. It features huge orange sea fans, black coral, and large barrel sponges. The potential for spotting larger fish is excellent, the dive site is very dramatic and the fish life excellent, including groupers or potato cod and leopard sharks at the deeper depths.

Western Rocky Island is the one of the best dive site in Mergui archipelago. This limestone island features beautiful underwater terrain, including a tunnel (often full of large tawny nurse sharks), which traverses the island about 20-meters down. The island is more like a series of pinnacles rather than one big rock and the soft limestone makes for crevices offering shelter for a wide variety of sea creatures. Some of the marine lives you will see here include mantas, gray reef and spinner sharks, and eagle rays in the open water next to the island, while leopard sharks and spotted rays lie on the bottom. On and around the rocks, spiny lobster, cowries shells, feather stars, anemones and an assortment of crabs abound. Reef fish include blue-ringed angelfish, moray-eels, snappers, frogfish, and ghost pipefish.

There are no islands here, the Burma Banks, located about 80 nautical miles west of Kawthaung, are a series of seamounts that rise up from over 300-meters to just below the surface. Depths average 15-22 meters on the flat areas on top, dropping off slowly on the edges. Some banks have a more dramatic drop off than others, but nowhere will you find a vertical wall. Diving here requires careful planning, as the currents are often strong and unpredictable. Guided drift dives are the norm, usually starting on the edge of the bank in 35-meters of water where divers stare out in the blue looking for large silvertip sharks. Commonly growing to just over two-meters in length, these sharks are full-bodied, fascinating animals easily identified by the white trailing edges on their pectoral fins and caudal, or tail fins. Normally quite curious, but not aggressive, these sharks will closely approach the diver making for incredible photo opportunities. The nurse sharks, black tips and gray reef sharks are usually found. If the sharks are not currently around, the dogtooth tuna, Spanish mackerel and jack fish that patrol the reef edges will delight you. The coral is in very good shape in many places, but this varies from year to year depending on storm activity and other environmental factors.

A bizarre little rock in the ocean with a single tree perched on top of it. The dive site High Rock has more for macro fans as the little guys are in abundance and the visibility is usually poorer than other areas in the Archipelago. On close inspection you will find nudibranchs, bearded scorpionfish, pipefish and seahorses around the submerged rocks.

One of the most extraordinary dive sites, the three rocks named Shark Cave (OK Rock) that rise out of the sea from depths of 40-meters or more, harbors some of the best marine life in the archipelago. Huge schools of fusilier and silversides surround you upon entering the water. The sandy base of the islands reveals unusual anemones and starfish, while the walls are covered with orange cup corals, whip corals, and green tubastrea coral. It is one of the better areas to see harlequin shrimp and harlequin ghost pipe fish.

For the thrill seekers there is a huge canyon to the north of the middle island and leads to a cave at around 16 meters, the entrance is usually guarded by several grey reef sharks that may lose their shyness and swim up to you if you stay quiet and motionless. The tunnel is around 20 meters long and has many cup corals and sponges along its walls.

Black Rock is probably the best dive site with the most potential for big stuff in the archipelago. It is fairly remote and thus attracts the big fish. The island itself is like a set of steps dropping down to over 70 meters deep. Although visibility can change dramatically here due to strong currents at certain times of the month, it's best to start the dive in deeper waters, watching the currents, and keeping a look out for larger life including manta rays and their smaller cousins, mobula rays. Gray reef and other species of shark are seen here regularly. Whale sharks as well. Some of the fish you will see here include black-spotted pufferfish, spotted hawkfish, scorpionfish, and blue-ringed angelfish. If you are a moray eel fan, then this is your dive site. Many unusual and rarely seen morays are common, including extra-large common green, zebra, and fimbriated and white-eyed morays. Octopus and cuttlefish can be found here, the latter easy to photograph.